ABOUT OUR FOUNDING AND START OF OUR MISSION
Peter Anthony Achilles Redpath (b. 16 August 1945; Professor of Philosophy at St. John’s University, New York, from 1979 to 2010) is author/editor of 18 philosophical books (11 monographs and 7 edited/or co-edited collective volumes), and many dozens of articles and book reviews. His 2021 monograph, How to Listen and How to Speak: Standing on the Shoulders of Giants to Renew Commonsense and Uncommonsense Wisdom in the Contemporary World, the first-ever publication of the prestigious John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin (KUL), Jacek Woroniecki Memorial Lectures (Peter A. Redpath 2021 KUL Jacek Woroniecki Memorial Lectures), is currently available from many online booksellers (including from En Route Books & Media and Amazon).
The contents of this book also serve as the Orientation Course for 2 commonsense wisdom academies that Dr. Redpath and some colleagues formally established on 15 September 2021 to help reverse the decline of commonsense and uncommonsense wisdom in the West and globally; and, thereby, hopefully, help preserve world peace. Their 2021-2022 course catalogue, which includes course descriptions of their present 22 offerings conducted by leading internationally recognized scholars, is available at:
Commonsense Wisdom Liberal Arts Academy Course Catalogue
In 2021, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of the Great Ideas Movement at Columbia University in the United States, Dr. Redpath co-edited, with colleagues from KUL, The Great Ideas of Religion and Freedom: A Semiotic Reinterpretation of the Great Ideas Movement for the 21st Century, published by Brill The Great Ideas of Religion and Freedom.
His 4 most-recent books prior to this were:
1) republication, by Public Philosophy Press in 2021, of his popular monograph, How to Read a Difficult Book: A Beginner's Guide to the Lost Art of Philosophical Reading, currently available at
2) his more-than-800-page The Moral Psychology of St. Thomas Aquinas: An Introduction to Ragamuffin Ethics (En Route Books & Media, 2017):
https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/moralpsychology/
3) and his 2-volume A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics: Written in the Hope of Ending the Centuries-Old Separation between Philosophy and Science and Science and Wisdom (published in 2015 and 2016 respectively, by En Route Books & Media, St. Louis, Mo.):
(https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/nsecmvol1/; https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/nsecmvol2/)
An internationally recognized scholar, since 1980 Dr. Redpath has given over 200 invited guest lectures nationally and internationally, participated as a panelist, and helped organize dozens of conferences nationally and internationally at major colleges and universities and institutions in the US: such as, Princeton University, the University of Chicago, Duke University (Fuqua Graduate School of Business), Georgetown, Johns Hopkins University, Notre Dame, Ohio State University, Arizona State University, Catholic University of America, New York University, Fairfield University, Fordham University, Mercer University, the University of Indiana, Western Michigan University, the University of San Francisco, Berkeley, the US Air Force Academy, the US Military Academy at West Point, the US State Department; and in Europe and Canada: at the Vatican, St. Andrews in Scotland, the Cini Foundation in Venice; the “Institut International ‘Jacques Maritain’,” in Treviso, Italy; the Irish Cultural Center in Paris; the Hanns Seidel Foundation, in Germany; the John Paul II Catholic University in Lublin, and Nicolaus Copernicus University, in Torun, Poland; and McGill University and the University of Toronto, in Canada. Prior to his 2021Woroniecki Memorial Lectures at the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, on 20 September 2018, he delivered a Plenary Session Lecture entitled “Standing on the Shoulders of Giants to Refine Gilson’s Teaching about Christian Philosophy” at the Sorbonne, in Paris, as part of the 150th Anniversary Celebration of the Founding of École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris, France, The Sorbonne (Liard Amphitheater), a Special EPHE-Sponsored International Colloquium on “Étienne Gilson (1884–1978), Medievalist and Philosopher, Man of Faith and Man of Action,” which he co-organized with Michel Cacouros, EPHE Maître de conférences Habilité, Sciences Historiques et Philologique,
Dr. Redpath has taught philosophy full and part-time on the college and university levels for over 53 years, at several public and private institutions, including (as a Graduate Fellow) at the State University of New York at Buffalo; at Millard Fillmore College (Buffalo, NY); in Montclair State University's Philosophy for Children Program in New Jersey (for which he was the New York State representative), as a tenured faculty member at Lock Haven State University in Pennsylvania; at St. Francis College (Brooklyn, NY); as an assistant director/teacher for 10 years at Arthur Kill Correctional Facility (Staten Island, NY), and for 2 years at Rikers Island Correctional Facility (Queens, NY).
Among his many accomplishments, he is Co-founder of the Gilson Society (USA) and Co-founder and Rector of the Adler-Aquinas Institute (whose Chancellor is Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., founder and publisher of Ignatius Press); President of the International Etienne Gilson Society (Warsaw, Poland); former Vice-president of the American Maritain Association; Co-Founder and Founding Chairman (in conjunction with Mortimer J. Adler, Max Weismann, Patrick S. J. Carmack, and Steve Bertucci) of the Angelicum Academy homeschool program (of which he is Chairman of the Board) and Member of the Board of the Great Books Academy homeschool program; former Adviser to the Catholic Education Foundation (Rochester, NY); former Member of the Board of Trustees of the Institute for Advanced Philosophic Research; Member of Board and Executive Committee of the Catholic Education Foundation; Academician of The Catholic Academy of Sciences (USA); former Member of the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs; former Executive editor of Value Inquiry Book Series, the Studies in the History of Western Philosophy (SHWP), former Editor of the Gilson Studies (GS), and current Member of the Editorial Board of the Philosophy and Religion (PAR) Special Series for Brill Publishing; former associate editor of, and adviser to, the journal Contemporary Philosophy; a Member of the original Editorial Board of the political journal Telos; former Member of the New York Press Club and Managing Editor of the Staten Island Eagle monthly newspaper (with a circulation of over 130,00 families [approximately 400,00 readers]); a 1989 Candidate for Comptroller of the City of New York; recipient of: St. John’s University’s Outstanding Achievement Award; the Realia Award for Service from the scholarly journal Contemporary Philosophy; the Socratic Fellowship Award from the Great Books Academy; and he was Inaugural-year inductee as Distinguished Alumnus of Xaverian High School (Brooklyn, NY); former Graduate Fellow of SUNY at Buffalo.
Dr. Redpath is also the only scholar, or cultural leader, ever to be honored by metaphysicians from “The Lublin School of Thomism” with the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin’s Laudatio Award for “Achievement in Intellectual and Organizational Wisdom.” Especially significant about this singular honor is that metaphysicians from this Lublin School of Thomism were the ones with whom St. John Paul II had studied and worked to develop the metaphysical principles that he had applied to help cause the decline of Communism in Poland and Eastern Europe!
Peter Redpath is, also, founder and CEO of the Aquinas School of Leadership, Management, and Organizational Development, LLC; and retired Chair of the graduate concentration in Thomistic Studies/Christian Wisdom at Holy Apostles College and Seminary (Cromwell, CT), which he established in 2014. In addition, he is a contributing scholar in the Thomistic Studies graduate program at the University Abat Oliba in Barcelona, Spain.
Throughout his career, Peter has appeared on panels with, among others, Elliott Abrams, Daniel Bell, Russell Berman, Sissela Bok, Robert Bork, John N. Deely, Jude P. Dougherty, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Amitai Etzione, Thomas Franck, John Lewis Gaddis, William Galston, Robert George, Mary Ann Glendon, John and Russell Hittinger, Leon Klenicki, Paul Oskar Kristeller, Anthony Lewis, Herbert I. London, David Little, John Lukacs, Alasdair MacIntyre, Ralph McInerny, Eric McLuhan, Richard John Neuhaus, Michael Novak, John O’Sullivan, Paul Ricoeur, Joel Rosenthal, Robert Royal, Oscar Schacter, James V. Schall, Richard Schoeck, Donald Schriver, Jr., Paul Sigmund, James Weisheipl, Ken Woodward, and Daniel Yankelovich.
Over the years, his scholarly research has been praised by thinkers such as Frederick C. Copleston, Michael Novak, Herbert I. London, Henry B. Veatch, Ralph M. McInerny, Mark Brumley, James V. Schall, and Jude P. Dougherty.
Regarding one of Peter’s works, former Dean Emeritus of the Catholic University of America’s School of Philosophy, Jude P. Dougherty, has said:
“Given the breadth of his historical survey and his analytic power, he is reminiscent of Hegel at his most sweeping. This is obviously the work of a mature scholar, the reflections of a learned and serious philosopher who shows clearly that ideas have consequences, even when they are of the most removed and metaphysically abstract. ...To open this book is to be captivated by Redpath’s unconventional view of modernity. One puts it down with the conviction that one has encountered a profound thinker at work.”
In 2014, Redpath's book A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics was listed by Mark Brumley, CEO of Ignatius Press, and James V. Schall, S.J. as among “The Best Books I Read in 2014” for The Catholic World Report:
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/3605/The_Best_Books_I_Read_in_2014.aspx#sdendnote4sym
Immediately below are excerpts from a May 2018 article by Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. entitled “On What is Generated by the Human Intellect.” Full text of the article was published by The New Oxford Review:
“A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics is a rich book, and Redpath has a clear style. He breaks complicated issues into short, intelligible units. He repeats difficult points, and then he repeats them again, rephrasing them to make them understandable. This is a book I wish I’d had in my earlier years of studies. In reading it, I found that many notions and points I had often wondered about, or about which I needed more explanation, were much clearer after Redpath dealt with them. For us metaphysicians, this is a book of refreshment and a review of what we thought we knew. . . .
A book is an artifact that, once published, is just out there. It awaits a reader who can understand it, who is capable of seeing what truth or error might be found in it. A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics is one of those rare, to-the-point books that argues forcefully about the heart of things. The book is remarkably whole. It relates the order of the mind and the order of things in a way we seldom see in a brief space. Yes, it remains a difficult book. We must take time to read it. Philosophy, it is said, is the quest for a knowledge of the whole. It is this knowledge that completes each of us and points us to the reality from which and in which we live.
'The natural human desire to become happy, in turn, can only be satisfied by generating the sciences of metaphysics and ethics,' Redpath writes. 'And of these two, ethical activity can only be completely satisfying to the extent to which we are able intellectually to satisfy ourselves that, in this life, we have achieved the best of human goods: a most perfect contemplative knowledge of the beauty of our own souls, that we possess the highest truth and perfect virtue.' Redpath is not a utopian and does not think everyone will choose and discipline himself to achieve the highest things in this life. But he is right in telling us what we are about when we know both ourselves and what is out there that is not ourselves.
The advantage of this book is its constant, step-by-step guidance to knowing how to achieve such an end of understanding what is, if we would have it. This is the highest service a professor can perform for those who wonder, for those who seek to know reality. And if he is wrong in any of his argument, Peter Redpath wants to be the first to know it and to know why, if indeed he is wrong.
This is a 'not-so-elementary' treatise from a man who wrote about 'how to read a difficult book.' If we are careful and persistent, when we come to the end of A Not-So-Elementary Christian Metaphysics, we will see that the difficulty was worth it. We will also see, much to our surprise, that metaphysics is the one discipline we dare not neglect. This is, perhaps, why Redpath calls it a Christian metaphysics.”
For other recent publications and interviews given by Peter Redpath, see:
http://www.gilsonsociety.com/?issues,31
http://enroutebooksandmedia.com/nsecmvol2/
http://enroutebooksandmedia.com/nsecmvol1/
http://enroutebooksandmedia.com/moralpsychology/
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/author/redpath-peter/
http://www.podbean.com/media/share/pb-9mxv7-69d1ef
https://podcast.catholicradioindy.org/e/the-catholic-cave-a-new-enlightenment-with-dr-peter-redpath/
Testimonials Regarding Peter Redpath's ASL Program about "The Organizational Genius of St. Thomas Aquinas":
Peter DeMarco, Founder and CEO, Institute for Priority Thinking, LLC:
“Peter Redpath's teachings about 'The Organizational Genius of St. Thomas Aquinas' are the reason for my success as a leadership coach and budding ethicist in business.”
A William McVey, Organizational Consultant in Knowledge and Emergent Behavior:
"For many years, I had worked in the manufacturing world as the CEO of a Total Quality and Knowledge Management consultant organization dedicated in theory and practice to W. Edwards Deming’s ‘12 Principles of Management.’ I had spent time studying with Deming, and had heard him often express that corporate management required a theory of profound knowledge. Near the end of his career he realized that creation of an organization dedicated to quality required more than the statistical and process tools of TQM, and he started to call for a new type of leadership grounded in an Aristotelian concept of causation and a psychology of excellence."
Five years ago, as I was attempting to develop a new cadre of Deming consultants, I was led by a colleague to the writings of Peter Redpath and have worked with him at his Aquinas School of Leadership since then as he has developed his Thomistic metaphysics of organization and organizational and moral psychology.
As an organizational consultant of the Deming and Drucker schools, I am most indebted to Dr. Redpath. His work in the Metaphysics of Organization and Organizational Moral Psychology have profoundly enriched my understanding of knowledge management. His teachings about the metaphysics of organizational principles are crucial to understanding ‘emergent organizational development.’
I believe the great minds of organizational management of the 20th century (Peter Drucker, Chester I Barnard, and W Edwards Deming) would have enjoyed and celebrated Redpath’s groundbreaking educational program on ‘The Organizational Genius of St. Thomas Aquinas’ as surpassing some of their own teachings.
– For further information, email Dr. Redpath at: [email protected]
In 2010, Dr. Redpath moved to Cave Creek, AZ, in part to devote his time to developing organizations focused on applying the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas to solving local, national, and international problems.